The Manticore cover art

The Manticore

The Deptford Trilogy, Book 2

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Manticore

By: Robertson Davies
Narrated by: Marc Vietor
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern classic", Robertson Davies' acclaimed Deptford Trilogy is a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived series of novels, around which a mysterious death is woven.

The Manticore, the second book in the series after Fifth Business, follows David Staunton, a man pleased with his success but haunted by his relationship with his larger-than-life father. As he seeks help through therapy, he encounters a wonderful cast of characters who help connect him to his past and the death of his father.

©1972 Robertson Davies (P)2011 Audible, Inc. Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Fifth Business cover art
What's Bred in the Bone cover art
Don Quixote cover art
Cthonia's Reckoning cover art
Leaving Blythe River cover art
The Kite Runner cover art
Beyond Scandal and Desire cover art
Everybody's Son cover art
The Sword of Kaigen: A Theonite War Story cover art
The Brothers Karamazov cover art
Unveiled cover art
Where Wild Peaches Grow cover art
The Ones We Choose cover art
Wunderland cover art
Thief of Corinth cover art
The Hills Have Spies cover art

Critic reviews

"One of the splendid literary enterprises of this decade." ( Newsweek)
"Robertson Davies is one of the great modern novelists." (Malcolm Bradbury, The Sunday Times, London)
"Robertson Davies is a novelist whose books are thick and rich with humor, character and incident. They are plotted with skill and much flamboyance." ( The Observer)
All stars
Most relevant
This is the second part of the Deptford trilogy and as with the other books by Robertson Davies this is well written and entertaining at a range of levels. The narration though is strange not only because of the weird mid-Atlantic accent but the way that in this reading, it is even more variable than the other two books. Dr Von Halle varies from "zee clorious cherman psychoserapist" to mid Atlantic with a bit of French sounding here and there. Ben Cruickshank, Loella' father, swoops from Scotland across to Belfast in a single sentence. In some parts of the book, the narration includes whether it is Dunstable or Von Halle speaking because they are indistinguishable.
It's hard to ignore all this but if you can the story swings it with Davies' quality writing.

Great story but strange performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I Listened to this audible book following an interview with the author of a prayer for Owen Meany (my favourite book) I can see the inspiration and similarities very clearly and loved listening to this as a comparison I am now looking forward to the final part of the trilogy

A long but interesting follow on

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.